


Those Who Wait

by dolores



Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: M/M, Post-Film, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-05
Updated: 2019-10-05
Packaged: 2020-11-24 18:15:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20911979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dolores/pseuds/dolores
Summary: Some months after their first kiss, Thomas and Richard finally have the same day off. Thomas travels to London to meet his new friend. But does Richard feel as Thomas does?





	Those Who Wait

Thomas Barrow stepped down from the third-class carriage onto the platform at King’s Cross, placing his homburg carefully on his head. The station was a hubbub of passengers, porters, guards and luggage, air thick with the smells of burning coal, hot engine oil and steam. A world away from Downton Abbey, and he was glad of that.

Reaching into his coat pocket, Thomas produced a small square of folded paper. He opened it up and, for what must have been the hundredth time, studied closely the set of directions he had written there. This wasn’t his first trip up to London, and he knew the capital well enough from several stints at Grantham House when the Crawleys relocated for the season – not to mention, though he wished now he could forget, his various consultations with the doctors who had promised but failed to cure his inversion. Even so, he didn’t want to leave anything to chance.

Refolding the paper and placing in back in his pocket, he walked down the platform, past the second and first-class coaches and the handsome bottle-green engine now idling at the buffers, and out to the station forecourt. It was just as bustling, crowded with shops selling newspapers, confectionary, tobacco and much else besides. The spring air was damp and cold; Thomas looked at the line of motor cabs snaked along Pancras Road and wished he were rich enough to take one. Instead he looked for the entrance to the underground.

There were ten stops between King’s Cross and his destination. The tube car squeaked and rattled loudly as it sped along beneath the city, lights flickering. Other passengers sat chatting, reading newspapers or staring at adverts for tea or cigarettes or face cream. None paid him any heed, and Thomas wondered how they could be so indifferent to the excitement and apprehension that had to be radiating from him like heat from a flame.

When he alighted at South Kensington, so too did a few mothers and a gaggle of children that he assumed were headed to one of the museums on Exhibition Road. He’d accompanied Lady Mary and George to the Natural History Museum the summer before, and the boy had talked about the dinosaur skeleton they’d seen for weeks afterwards. He thought about making a detour to see if they sold a suitable toy, but even if they did it would beg too many questions about why he’d been in London. Instead, he set off in more or less the opposite direction, down Old Brompton Road.

The address in Drayton Gardens had featured in his imagination every time he had written it on an envelope, and just a few minutes later here it was: a mansion block, smart in red brick, white stucco and black wrought-iron Juliet balconies. If it was no Downton Abbey, it was still much more elegant than he had assumed, a rather grand residence for a valet.

Next to the front door was a line of brass doorbells. Thomas pushed the button labelled “Ellis”. A moment later, two storeys above him, a window opened.

“Let yourself in,” said Richard, just loud enough to hear, and then tossed down a key.

In the block’s stairwell a lift was suspended behind filigreed ironwork, but it looked like a complex machine and Thomas took the stairs. Richard was waiting at the door to his flat, chestnut hair gleaming with pomade and smile yet more heart-stopping than Thomas had remembered.

“It’s good to see you, Mr Barrow,” he said, then stood aside to admit Thomas, his hand resting briefly on Thomas’s arm as he passed. He took Thomas’s coat and hat and hung them on a stand in the hall. “Go through and take a seat, I’ll bring us some tea.”

Thomas entered the sitting room, sat down on an armchair, and waited. The flat was sparsely furnished, but what it had was well-made and tasteful, with lots of dark, polished wood and muted silver-grey and green fabrics. There was little by way of decoration: a few anodyne landscapes hung on the walls, while on a low bookcase full of leather-bound volumes of Dickens, Hardy and Thackeray sat a smoked-glass vase containing a spray of dried flowers. It was all very unostentatious; even the antique mantle clock chimed discreetly.

Waiting seemed to be a feature of his friendship with Richard. Waiting on the postman to bring letters from London, or occasionally Sandringham or Windsor. Waiting so many tortuous months until, finally, they both had the same day off work and Thomas could come to visit for a few precious hours. And now, waiting these interminable few minutes while Richard made the tea.

There was so much he wanted to do in the short time they had, so much he wanted to know. Their correspondence was fulsome, but it necessarily lacked the level of intimacy he desired. True, they had been able to share much innocuous information, the sort that could be disclosed without fear of it looking untoward if intercepted. He knew Richard was the youngest of four children born to a solicitor and his wife; that though his parents now lived in York, he was raised in Shrewsbury; that Lieutenant Ellis of the King’s Shropshire Light Infantry had served on the Western Front late in the Great War; and that there were any number of mildly amusing, if-not-scurrilous anecdotes to relate when you worked in the Royal Household. But there was nothing to match the conversations he had had that extraordinary night in York, nor any unambiguous indication of Richard’s feelings.

At last, Richard appeared, carrying a tray laden with crockery that he set down on the low table before Thomas. He set out the cups on their saucers, the fine bone china decorated with an unobtrusive cornflower pattern, added a dash of milk then poured in the thick brown liquid. Thomas accepted his own with a reflexive, “Thank you.”

Once Richard had taken a seat on the armchair opposite, they both took a sip, then Thomas asked: “Is this where you live?”

Richard smiled. “No, I live at the Palace. But I own this flat, and I’ll come to live here eventually, when I leave His Majesty’s service.”

“Not many valets who own a place like this.”

“An inheritance from my grandfather.” Thomas didn’t suppose many valets had rich grandfathers neither, but then most weren’t valets to the monarch. As if he could hear Thomas’s thoughts, Richard added, “I’m lucky, I know. It’s useful to have a place one can have some… privacy, if one needs it.”

“Oh.” The implication was clear, and Thomas felt his chest tighten. “Do you often need privacy?”

Another smile. “Not recently, no. But the need has arisen in the past.”

“I see.” Enough codewords, thought Thomas; they had to use enough of those in their written communication. “I’m afraid I might be very inexperienced by comparison. You should know that I’ve only ever been with one man.” As soon as it was said Thomas regretted it. They’d barely said two words to one another, and here he was speaking of physical acts. It was presumptuous at best. Before Richard could reply he said: “I’m sorry. If you’d wanted to know that, you’d have asked.”

A sip of tea. “Three, for me. But none since we started our correspondence.”

This was gratifying to know, but Thomas felt all the worse he’d somehow forced this confession. “You don’t need to tell me, it’s none of my business.”

Richard sat back in his armchair. “The first was a guardsman. I’d heard they were willing to do some scandalous things for a shilling – and I can confirm that rumour to be quite true. The second was a minor baronet I met at a party in Belgravia. We shared a bed a few times – once here – but then he married, and our affair came to an end. Finally, a man from the Foreign Office I met on official business who was _already_ married, so when we met it had to be here. That ended after a few months when he was posted overseas.”

His mouth suddenly dry, Thomas gulped some tea, then said: “But how did you know any of them would reciprocate?”

“I was told about them, or they were told about me. Like a secret society, I suppose.” He raised one eyebrow at Thomas’s expression. “You don’t think I’m the only one of our kind at the Palace, do you?”

Thomas had wondered. “But how do _they_ know? I’ve never worked it out, that trick. Our kind seem to see it in me, like you did, but I never see it in others. Until that night in York I thought I might be the only one north of London. The man I’ve been with I met here, fifteen years ago. He was a Duke, he came to Grantham House for a dinner. He made a pass at me when we were alone, he knew what I was, somehow – but I would never have guessed it with him.”

Richard leaned forward again. “I didn’t know for sure when I met you, Thomas. I just hoped it was true.”

Thomas was not given to blushing, but he felt the heat rise in his cheeks. He avoided Richard’s gaze, placing his cup on the table, wiping suddenly sweaty hands on his trousers. “And I nearly ruined it all by going to that warehouse.” He’d read in the _Yorkshire Post_ that several men arrested that night had been found guilty at the magistrate’s court of offences such as importuning and disorderly conduct, including Chris Webster. They’d been fined mostly, a mild punishment given the options open to the judge, Thomas supposed – but he knew other consequences would follow, likely including the loss of whatever job Webster held.

“There are less hazardous ways of confirming your persuasions, I’ll admit.”

Still staring down, Thomas said quietly, “I’ve still no idea how I can possibly repay your kindness that night.”

He looked up in time to see the twinkle in Richard’s grey eyes. “I may have some suggestions, Mr Barrow.”

“Do you mean that, Richard?” For a moment, the breath caught in Thomas’s throat, then he found his words tumbling out: “Just – please don’t tease me if you don’t. You know, every time there’s a quiet moment, I think of our kiss. Mrs Hughes caught me daydreaming about it once, said I looked like a lovesick calf. She wasn’t so far wrong. I tell myself I could die happy if only I could kiss you one more time. But it’s not true, because I want so much more than that. I think you’re the most wonderful man I’ve ever met, the first I could ever really imagine being my _friend._ Yet I daren’t hope you feel the same way because I can’t compare to you. How could I?”

He took a breath. Richard’s expression was inscrutable, so Thomas ploughed on. “And here I am telling you all this, and, God, making you confess how many men you’ve been with – and all before I’ve even asked how you are. I flatter myself as a man of the world, a sophisticate among the servants at Downton, but around you I make Andy Parker look like bloody Valentino.”

“If it helps, I can confirm I’m quite well thank you.” Richard set down his teacup on the table. “What I will say is this: if you work at the Palace, it pays to have a certain _sang-froid_. In fact, I’m sure that’s true of any servant; when the nobility get into a hole, it’s we who have to dig them out. To say the least, I know only too well how to smuggle a young lady out of the Palace in the depth of night.”

Thomas thought of Lady Mary and Mr Pamuk, but he didn’t like to interrupt.

“And, yes, I know a few of our kind in London, so I have a window on that world. For all that, I’m not so different to you. Perhaps I have some more experience, but I paid for one encounter and the other two were with men who saw me as an outlet for their desires before or after they took a wife. There was no question of emotions being brought into it – not on their part, anyway.”

He rose from his armchair and stepped forward, then knelt at Thomas’s feet, taking Thomas’s hand in his own. “Do you know what an acrostic is?”

Thomas simply shook his head.

“I thought perhaps not. Read my letters again, taking the first letter from each sentence and see what they spell out. If you do that, I think my feelings for you will be plainer. In the meantime, trust that I think of our kiss as often as you.” He brought Thomas’s hand up to his mouth and pressed his lips against it.

Thomas closed his eyes and tilted back his head. For a moment, there was just the sound of his own breath, the quiet tick of the mantle clock, and the sensation of Richard’s lips on his skin. Then he felt Richard move, one strong hand sliding around Thomas’s waist and the other gripping his shoulder, his mouth against Thomas’s neck, dragging up to the jaw. Thomas turned his head and their lips met, a kiss as fierce and thrilling as Thomas had remembered and more.

There being no footman to interrupt them on this occasion, they continued in this way for some time. It was Richard who broke contact, getting to his feet as he did.

“I’m getting cramp down there – but, if you forgive the presumption, I have a large bed in the other room. We’ll be more comfortable, I think.” His eyes twinkled again. “That _is _what you want?”

Thomas could barely put his yearning into words. “Very much.”

Like the sitting room, the bedroom seemed spartan, but the brass bedframe was as large as Richard had promised. Richard closed the door behind them then moved to the window and drew the curtains. He turned to Thomas. “Can I undress you?”

Thomas half-laughed. “You don’t have to do that.”

“I’m a valet, it’s exactly what I do. And it’s what I’ve wanted to do since we met.”

“Well… if it’s what you want.”

Richard had closed the distance between them as Thomas spoke. “Very much,” he said, reaching for the knot in Thomas’s tie.

It was a strange but pleasurable experience; though he’d helped Lord Grantham and Matthew Crawley and who knew who else to remove their clothes countless times, no-one had ever done the same for Thomas. Richard was efficient but rather more familiar than any servant would dare to be, his long fingers trailing across Thomas’s body as he exposed it, his murmured compliments in Thomas’s ear, his light kisses upon Thomas’s collarbone.

When Thomas was completely naked, Richard stood back. Thomas felt abashed, not least as his arousal was conspicuous, but the look on Richard’s face was quite serious as he studied Thomas’s body. “My imagination was insufficient, Thomas. You’re Hermes indeed.”

Thomas didn’t quite understand the reference, though it seemed to be a compliment. “I doubt I compare to you.”

“Don’t be so sure,” said Richard, “but I’d like you to see.” He began to shed his own clothing, and it took all of Thomas’s self-control merely to watch as Richard’s physique was revealed, for his nude form was all that Thomas could have hoped for: broad, lean and powerful. Where Thomas’s chest was quite hirsute, Richard was smooth; he looked as if he were carved from honeyed marble.

“You’re magnificent,” Thomas breathed. “If I’m Hermes, you’re Apollo.”

Richard half-smiled, then, in a voice that suggested he was quoting from a poem or a play: “’A bitter god to follow, a beautiful god to behold.’”

Again, Thomas felt a little lost. “Following you has been nothing but sweet, but I’ll agree you’re beautiful.” 

“Just something I read once.”

Still neither had moved, and somehow Thomas felt he needed permission. “Richard, I can’t wait any more. Can I touch you, please? I want to so much.”

“Wait.” For the first time that day, it was Richard who seemed the more nervous. “It strikes me that I’ve never been this intimate with someone I’ve truly cared for, and who seems to care for me. I’ve long wondered if our kind is even capable of constancy. I want to be. But do you truly mean what you say, Thomas? That this is more than a dalliance for you?”

Thomas looked straight into Richard’s eyes, moving close enough that he could reach out a hand and rest the fingertips on Richard’s chest, just above his heart. “You should know that I sleep with your locket under my pillow. It’s the most precious thing I own – that’s why I’m not wearing it today, I'd be too scared I'd lose it and I couldn't bear that. I’ve waited my whole life for you, Richard. I don’t ever want to let you go.”

Richard grasped Thomas’s outstretched hand in his own and drew Thomas to him with passionate force. It seemed their entire bodies met at once: lips, chest, stomach, thighs. Richard felt warm and very solid, and it was all Thomas could to hold off from climaxing in that instant. As he felt Richards arms wrap around him, as his own hands found Richard's firm buttocks, Thomas reflected that there were, in fact, some very good reasons to wait just a little longer. But not _too_ long.

Afterward, they lay together in the bed, spent, dishevelled, and damp with sweat. Thomas’s head rested on Richard’s shoulder, while Richard trailed his fingers through the hair on Thomas’s chest. 

“I wish we could do the normal things courting couples do. Go dancing.” Thomas had enjoyed that night in York, before the place was raided.

The fingers brushed across a nipple. “I’ll buy a gramophone for the flat, we can dance here.”

“You’re even richer than I thought if you can afford one of them.”

“I can get one second-hand.”

“Then I’d like that.”

“There are other things we can do. We could go out and get something to eat. Two friends having luncheon won’t attract any attention.”

Thomas thought about that. “We could, but we’ve only got a few hours before I have to travel back up north.” He placed his hand on Richard’s lower torso, just above his patch of wiry, dark curls. “Who knows how long we’ll have to wait before we can see each other again. Let’s enjoy the privacy, shall we?”

He moved his hand downwards, and Richard covered his mouth with a kiss.

*

The kitchen was full of the sights, sounds and smells of breakfast preparation. Mrs Patmore stood over the porridge with a spurtle, while Daisy supervised some eggs. Thomas placed some silverware on a tray, ready to take up to the dining room.

Mrs Hughes bustled in, keys clanking, carrying a tray she’d brought down from the Dowager’s room; old Lady Grantham was fading fast and now rarely left her bed. “Were you back late, Mr Barrow?” It was a question rather than an accusation.

“A little.” The tiredness burned behind Thomas’s eyes, but he felt light. “Here, let me, Mrs Hughes.”

“Thank you very much,” she said, as he took the tray from her and placed it on the side, near some other dishes waiting to be washed.

“Anything for you, Mrs Hughes.”

Mrs Hughes exchanged an amused look with Mrs Patmore. “I’ll remember you said that, Mr Barrow. Oh, some post arrived for you yesterday. It’s on your desk.”

He had to wait until the Crawleys were fed before he had some time to himself, his office quiet compared with the din elsewhere downstairs. A small pile of letters awaited him as Mrs Hughes had promised. Among them was an envelope with Richard’s handwriting; it must have been sent before he and Richard had met the day before. Tossing the others aside, Thomas picked up his letter opener and seconds later he had the enclosed notepaper open in his hands.

_Dear Thomas,_

_Many thanks for your letter of Friday 20th. Your visit to Drayton Gardens on the 24th is much anticipated._

_His Majesty’s schedule keeps the Household as busy as ever. Even Mr Wilson has been heard to grumble that we have taken on too many engagements of late. As I write this, we have just returned from tours to Rousham House and Blenheim Palace, both in Oxfordshire. Rousham has the most beautiful gardens, full of classical buildings and monuments. Their Majesties were much taken by them. I found myself admiring the fine statue of Hermes, for it reminded me rather of you. Similar figures are on display in the Victoria and Albert Museum, so perhaps we can compare directly on Tuesday._

_Yet more tours of English counties await in the coming weeks, but for now we rest at the Palace. Or, rather, Their Majesties do; a servant’s work is never done, as well you know. _

_Undoubtedly, you will have a great deal to tell me about the goings-on at Downton. Rest assured I await most eagerly your arrival and to hearing all your news._

_Sincerely,_  
_Richard_

He was still staring at the letter when Mrs Hughes appeared in the doorway.

“You’ve got that look on your face again,” she observed. “The lovesick calf.”

Thomas looked up to see her smiling at him.

“Yes, Mrs Hughes. I believe I do.”

**Author's Note:**

> Richard is quoting 'Hymn to Prosperine' by Algernon Charles Swinburne.


End file.
